It was early Monday evening after a sleepless weekend trip to New York and Long Island for Jared's baby shower.
I had just gotten out of the shower myself and coming into the bedroom, my cell phone was ringing.
I picked it up, taking my time, and when I pressed the green button I heard Lindsay talking to someone else, "ooooo, ohhhh, he better pick up!"
I was like, "Hey" thinking, what the H* happened?
She told me that Hernando told Julianna, that Beck was playing a midnight show in the back room at the local rocker-dive, the Black cat.
She relayed what Hernando said; that the line was already mounting and the tickets would go on sale at 9pm.
We also knew from Julianna's booking the "Rock Against Violence" show, that was on the same stage, the backroom only holds 150 people.
Lindsay and Julianna were at a happy hour and were trying to finish their drinks. Lindsay was frantic, telling me to get over to the Black cat and get in line.
I told her I would and let go of her.
Then I had a reality check as I found myself standing in my bedroom in a wet towel.
I had basically just gotten home from work and hadn't eaten or done anything productive.
I decided that I wasn't getting all excited, but still this rush started to overtake my conscious mind as I started to get dressed and get my bag together.
Since I've lived here, I've found out more than once how fast events can fill up or sell out.
It's worth a try no matter what, I decided, and not even stopping for a bite I went downstairs, turned on my little blinking light and took off for the Black cat as fast as I could.
From 1st street it was 14 blocks away, but it didn't take long.
I zoomed up, jumped off the bike, locked it up and found the happy hour girls in line with Hernando.
The girls were red faced and shiny-eyed from Martinis, but also from unbearable excitement and suspense.
We were all breathlessly wondering what was the real story, if it was true, if we would get in.
We commenced to waiting.
We had over an hour-and-a-half to wait.
My stomach was growling, but it was a good thing it wasn't too cold outside.
Still, tension filled the air and it was hard to not watch the crowd in front of us as groups of people started showing up and cutting in line with their friends.
But other people that were just showing up were counting heads as they went to the back of the line.
One guy came by and counted us off as being in the low eighties. We had been in the seventies a half hour before but we were still doing good.
Despite the odds at the back of the line people still kept lining up, and other kept coming and cutting up front, making everyone behind them a little nervy.
Finally after more head counters came by and our position was climbing into the nineties, it came to be 9pm and the line started moving.
Hernando came back to join us and said that there was a sign on the door up there saying, "Beck on the backstage" and "No In's and Outs."
So there would be no way to leave and get anything to eat.
We also found that they weren't allowing cameras inside, so I hid my camera in my pants just in time to come to the front door.
The guy checking bags didn't look too hard, but said that if I didn't have a camera now, but happened to find one, not to use it.
I was fine with that, and we got into another line that was formed inside the venue leading to the back doors.
We figured we were in still, and after some more time we finally came to the front of the line and the venue's head counters were still letting us by.
They said that we were in the 130's now. Our position had risen quite a bit, but we were still under the 150 number.
Man, this was intense, but finally finally, we arrived at the ticket selling girl and I put down 12 bucks and got a smeared blue stamp.
"No re-entries," the sign said.
But this felt great. And being trapped inside this smokey noisy dive we went the vegan cafe and were immediately turned back because everyone else that was trapped in there without dinner was trying to get meatless sustenance.
We decided to have some beer then, and a two-dollar bag of chips from the vending machine.
After about 45 minutes we entered the vegan cafe and got in line again, this time we made it through and all had our vegan burgers and vegan chili and hummus.
Then Ray and Elley showed up at the venue after Julianna had called them to tell them about the event, that was sold out. And being such an intense fan of Beck, Ray had dragged his girlfriend out against all odds to see if there was some way to get into the show.
I felt bad for Ray. Elley didn't care about Beck at all, but Ray tried not to be completely crushed.
Sitting at the table in the vegan cafe with everyone who had stamps and not, I really wished there would have been some way to help Ray and Elley get inside.
I felt guilty that I had gotten called and they hadn't, but they would have had to cut in line with us to get in, and I would have then felt bad about all of the people behind us that weren't getting in because we had called our friends, so there was no answer to it. No way to not feel guilty and feeling then more guilty about how excited we were to be getting in.
SO whatever,
But then, looking at the stamp I noticed that it looked like the same color as my Prismacolor ..PM-43 Indigo Blue, that I happened to have in my pen case that I happened to be carrying with my sketchbook, all for no apparent reason.
Then, after some indecision I decided to reveal this to Ray, that I thought the blurred little stamp on all of our hands was about the same size as a quarter.
I gave him the marker and he went to the bathroom and came out with a blue stamp on his hand. Elley didn't want to try it herself because she said that she didn't' want to risk it for Ray. And I wouldn't even take the marker back, because I didn't want to be caught with any evidence.
So, we paced and drank and scrutinized Ray's stamp. He went back to the bathroom to make improvements.
And then midnight approached and the mob formed at the door to the back stage.
They had to stop the line more than once to yell for no pushing.
But mostly everyone was pretty happy and neighborly.
When my turn came to have my stamp checked I raised my hand with a smile but couldn't look back to see if Ray made it, but when I was inside I turned around and there he was.
We were all very very happy and were finally inside.
After about a half an hour some dudes came on stage. About six of them, all with ridiculous hair, wigs, of every type, and we couldn't pick out Beck right at first, but then he stepped forward, the shortest one and sporting a crazy mop of real blond hair.
They broke into Devil's Haircut and went from there.
I was really pleased to see him, standing there, only about 30 feet away.
He said that they had recorded that afternoon for the David Letterman show and had been upstaged by Borat, but all of them had decided that they wanted to keep playing so they drove to DC.
It was crazy.
They hardly had any equipment, I think the DJ that had a "Joe Dirt" mullet on had to settle for playing the cow bells all night.
And the keyboardist only had one little keyboard and the sound was terrible and they were completely indecisive about what to play and had to take suggestions from the crowd the whole while.
But it's a rock and roll moment I'm not likely to forget.
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